An American Text of "Sir James the Rose"
by Louise Pound
American Speech, Vol. 1, No. 9 (Jun., 1926), pp. 481-483
AN AMERICAN TEXT OF "SIR JAMES THE ROSE"
THE following text has interest as illustrating t he ways of popular song. It was taken down as sung by Mr. James R. Barron of Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. Barron learned it about the year 1882. from his mother, who learned it by oral tradition when living
in the parish of Walls on the West side of the Shetland Islands. Neither knows its provenance. Mr. Barron cannot remember
that his mother ever owned a book of songs.
Although it has the same name, Mr. Barron's orally learned text is not to be identified with the Child ballad Sir James the Rose. It is unmistakably the imitative "historical ballad," Sir James the Rose, by Michael Bruce (1746-1767) which is based on the older ballad story. It was printed as an "old Scottish ballad" in the Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement, September 20, I770, IX, 371-73.
Logan published it in that year, with alterations and insertions (probably Logan's) in his edition of Bruce's poems. Bruce's ballad is said to have become as popular or more popular than the ballad on which it was founded.
SIR JAMES THE ROSE
Of all our Scottish Northern chiefs
Of high and warlike name,
The bravest was Sir James the Rose,
A knight of muckle fame.
Thrice he withstood the bloody fight
Against the English king,
Ere two and twenty opening springs
His blooming youth had seen.
The fair Matilda dear he loved,
A maid of beauty rare;
Even Margaret on our Scottish throne
Could not with her compare.
Her father Buchan, cruel lord,
This passion disapproved,
And bade her wed Sir John the Graeme
And leave the youth she loved.
One night they met as they were wont
Within a shady wood,
Down at a burn beside a bank
Where a tall oak tree stood.
Concealed beneath the underwood
This crafty Donald lay,
A brother of Sir John the Graeme,
To hear what they might say.
Long he had wooed, long she denied,
With shame and scorn and pride;
And what her constant heart confessed
Her faithless lips denied.
"My father Buchan, cruel lord,
Our passion disapproves,
And bids me wed Sir John the Graeme,
And leave the youth I love."
"Is this thy love, Matilda dear?"
Sir James the Rose replied.
"And wilt thou wed Sir John the Graeme
Though sworn to be my bride?" . . .
(Verse or verses forgotten)
They parted thus, the sun was set.
Up hastily Donald flies.
"O turn thee, turn thee, beardless youth,"
With loud insulting cries.
Soon turned about this beardless youth,
And soon his sword he drew,
And Donald's blood before his breast
Has soaked his tartan through.
Staggering, reeling, falling down,
A helpless lump of clay,
"Fast fall thy foes, thou valiant Rose,"
And straightway rode away.
"I now must to the Isle of Skye
Where my two brothers dwell,
And raise the valiant of the Isle
Their master to defend."
"'O say not so," the Maid replied,
"With me till morning stay,
For dark and dreary is the road
And dangerouiss the way.
"But do thou sleep within my bower.
My trusty page I'll send,
To run and raise the Rose's clan
Their master to defend."
Quick ran the page o'er hill and dale
Till in a lowly glen,
And there he met Sir John the Graeme
And twenty of his men.
"'Whered ost thou run, my little page?
Who did thee thus so send?"
"I run to raise the Rose's clan
Their master to defend.
"For he has slain fierce Donald Graeme,
His blood is on his sword,
And far far distant are those men
That must protect their lord."
"And has he slain my brother dear?"
The furiousG raermree plied,
"Dishonor blast my name but he
By me ere morning dies.
"Tell me where is Sir James the Rose?
I will thee well reward."
"He sleepeth in Lord Buchan's wood.
Matilda is his guard."
They pricked their steeds in furious mood,
And scoured along the way;
And came unto Lord Buchan's hall
By the dawning of the day.
Matilda stood without the gate,
To whom the Graeme did say,
"O have you seen Sir James the Rose,
Or did he pass this way?"
"Last night at e'en I heard them say
Sir James the Rose passed by.,
He pricked his steed in furious mood
And scoured along the lea.
"By now he is in Edinborough,
If man and horse hold good."
"Your page then lied who told me that
He sleepeth in your wood."
She wrung her hands and tore her hair,
"Brave Rose thou art betrayed,
And ruined by those very plans
I for thy safety laid."
By this time the valiant knight awoke,
The virgin's shrieks he heard.
Up he rose and drew his sword
Ere the fierce band appeared.
Five of his men, the bravest five,
Sank down beneath his sword,
And still he scorned to slay these men
And sought their haughty lord.
Behind him basely came the Graeme,
And wounded him in the side;
Out spouting came the crimson flood
And all his garments dyed . . .
[The last stanzas of the ballad could not be recalled by Mr. Barron. It proceeds, he says, to tell how the Graeme is mortally wounded and sinks down beside the Rose. Matilda, seeing her lover's fate, because of the miscarriage of her plans, kills herself. Last of all, the little page, overcome with grief when he realizes what he has brought on, runs a sword through his body and sinks in death beside his mistress.]
When the Nebraska text, taken down in 192o, is compared with Bruce's ballad, published in 1770, it is seen that twentyseven
stanzas remain of the original fiftyeight. One new stanza, the seventh, has been inserted. The sequence of stanzas
is but slightly disordered. The omissions from the original narrative are in
the direction of concreteness. Mostly it
is descriptive or elaborating stanzas which
are lost; there is never loss of dramatic
passages. If it were to be preserved
orally somewhat longer, or to pass through
many hands, the ballad would probably
wholly lose its eighteenth-century literary
touches and become consistently
concrete, simple, and dramatic, much
as the Child ballads lose some of their
mediaeval touches in later versions and
in New World versions. The Mid-
Western text deriving from Bruce's Sir
James the Rose affords the opportunity to
register with certainty some of the changes
arising in oral transmission.[1] Its de
partures from the original fall in line
with those pointed out by Dr. John
Robert Moore in his paper, the Influence
of Transmission on the English Ballads.
So far as I know, a version of the Child
ballad, Sir James the Rose, has never
been recovered in America.
LOUISE POUND.
University of Nebraska
1. Modern Language Review, XI, 385-408.